


Ride Out of That Sunset

by angelgazing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/pseuds/angelgazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean can't understand and Sam can't let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ride Out of That Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Giant amounts of thanks and hearts and stuff to [](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/profile)[**musesfool**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/) and [](http://luzdeestrellas.livejournal.com/profile)[**luzdeestrellas**](http://luzdeestrellas.livejournal.com/) for prompts and prodding and mad beta skills and hand holding and titling. You two rock my socks all across the room.

"Dean," Sam says, and puts every ounce of tired he can muster into his voice, just because. "Let's get real for a second."

"I am very real, Sammy," Dean replies, his fingers around the steering wheel, jaw clinched tight, shoulders straight, _T.N.T._ playing very, very loud. Sam doesn't have to hear him over it though, and they both know it. He wouldn't listen, even if he could. "You can't keep taking stupid--"

"I can't?" Sam asks, cuts in over him and it's not so much that his voice is louder than the Impala's speakers and the rumble of the motor and the road, but it's _stronger_. It's sharp because he makes it that way. "You don't get to make that call, Dean, I'm not--"

"You are still my little brother, and I get to make all those calls, no matter--" But Dean stops himself, cause he's always been the peacekeeper, and maybe he realizes how it sounds. He hits his palm on the wheel with more force than Sam has ever seen him use toward his car. "I get a say, Sam."

And it's stupid, because Sam's fingers are shaking, a little. When Dean goes to turn up the radio, to end the fight, Sam catches him, wraps his fingers around Dean's wrist for a second longer than he should,--a little harder than he should--just for the feel of Dean's pulse fluttering against the pads of his fingers. "I didn't," Sam says, his mouth pulled thin and his shoulder burning. He doesn't feel better, with the ghost of Dean's heartbeat echoing up his fingertips. He doesn't. But at least it's easier to inhale, for a while.

"Stop bleeding on the seat," Dean snaps, and Sam refuses to pretend Dean's jaw doesn't twitch. "I just got it cleaned."

Sam sighs, heavily, and slouches as low as he can in the seat. His knees press against the dash so hard it might bruise. The window is cool against his elbow. "I'll bleed where ever I want," he says, and hates how much he sounds like he did when he was thirteen.

Dean doesn't get it, when Sam doesn't push. He can't understand the way that Sam breathes too hard in the quiet, so he just turns up the radio.

\---

"Wake up, Sammy," Dean says, just this side of loud enough to wake every off season tourist in a two mile radius, and jumps on the bed where Sam is sleeping.

Sam takes one long breath to recover from his heart attack and stretches, toes pointed south and fingertips reaching north, and yawns. He flinches when his shoulder starts to burn, when crude, hasty stitches start to pull at the skin. And even with his rude awakening, he smothers a smile into his shoulder for the way that Dean lets go of the little hurts.

He pushes Dean off the bed and closes his eyes when Dean yelps and hits the floor.

\---

"If I never, ever had to have an egg mcmuffin again, it would be too soon."

"Shut up and eat your breakfast," Dean says, with his mouth full and a grin.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

\---

When the painkillers wear off, it hits Sam all over again. Too many Tuesdays, and too much silence, and pain, and all the bumps in the road. He wakes up with his forehead pressed against the car window, breathing hard, shoulder on _fire_. And he doesn't think. Just hears Asia and…

"Dude," Dean says, swerving dangerously, grabbing a fist full of Sam's t-shirt, and neither one of them knows if it's to keep Sam still or pull him close. "Hey."

Sam swallows, _hard_, and presses the scan button on the radio viciously. He remembers being younger, being smaller, folding his legs up in the seat with him and pressing them into Dean's thigh, Dean telling him stories when he was afraid. He remembers months and months of … "I hate this song."

Dean shakes his head and smoothes out Sam's shirt. He hooks his thumb under Sam's collar for just a second and then it's gone. "Asia is _awesome_. Are you sure we're brothers?"

\---

Dean drives until it gets dark, even though they don't have anywhere they've got to be. Sam understands it better now.

He wonders if they can lose it all if they just keep moving.

\---


End file.
